Thursday, September 18, 2008

The government is seen as a parasitic organism sucking the life's blood from the superior private sector. In conservatives, there is almost a child-like trust that "If only the government did not exist, the private sector could regulate itself."

Well, forgive this old Hobbesian, but humans are terrible at self regulation. Unbound by any rules, we succumb to the basest instincts of our character, greed, lust and pathological selfishness. You don't have to believe me. Look around you. At least 16 dead, because a Conservative government decided to move meat inspectors out of the meat industry's way. Billions of dollars spent trying to save a world economy corrupted by an ideology that didn't believe in government regulation.

Canadians are in the middle of an election and the party that believes that no government regulation is good regulation, is leading in the polls. If they do manage to hang on to form a government, Canadians can expect more of the same from them. That means more dead people and more lost billions. And please note, it isn't that conservatives and Conservatives are bad people. Rather, it is because they have a misguided belief that humans, left to their own devices, are saints and not humans. Canadians would be wise not to encourage their delusions, by rewarding them with a continued grasp on power.

"humans are terrible at self regulation. Unbound by any rules, we succumb to the basest instincts of our character, greed, lust and pathological selfishness."

Thanks for that brief summary of your opinion of everyone but you.

Because as we all know, conservatives and libertarians are against all rules and believe that we would live in a paradise if government simply withered away..oh wait...that's someone else's theory.

Thank God governments are run by angels and staffed by robots, rather than mere humans, otherwise the actions of government could also tend toward the same "greed, lust and pathological selfishness" we see at work in the satanic private sector, only on a much, much larger scale. Good thing that's never happened in China, Cambodia, Burma, Germany, France, Japan, Russia, Vietnam, Italy, Zimbabwe, Iraq, Russia...

I think there needs to be a balance of freedom and regulation. Imbalance either way is what gets you into big trouble (Either slavery or anarchy). I think Republicans and our beloved PM (tobacco jihad to the contrary) are tilting way more to the anarchy side (and then as a side benefit, they get all wobbly when anarchy raises its head and then spend gobs of taxpayer's money trying to stave it off). If they had just regulated the industies I mentioned in more than a half assed way, they wouldn't be in the mess they are in now.

So I guess I can't sell you on the opinion that the financial crisis in the US has also resulted from inappropraite government intervention. If it wasn't government policy (supported by both Democrats and Republicans) to enable those who can't afford mortgages to get them (through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) then this whole housing bubble would not have happened and would not have brought down these financial firms.

So I guess I can't sell you on the opinion that the financial crisis in the US has also resulted from inappropraite government intervention.

Well, you can always try. Fannie and Freddie were a couple of the tools used ( and they were largely privatized in the 60's. It was a neat arrangement where the private sector got the profits whereas, as we have seen, all losses have been socialized). but the underlying ideology was "government bad, market good. All hail the market". Even in this crisis, the government is seen as nothing more than an ATM for Wall Street.